Politics, Religion, Education, Perspective and Reality as I know it, with a good dose of humor and some small bit of navel gazing. Promoting peace, the sacred center of our humanity, with belief that when humans are our best and most joyous selves the world changes for the better.
See also crankycindy.blogspot.com where I post on my less optimistic days.

Monday, September 12, 2005

This is Gwen

An email I got made it clear that a photo of Gwen might help people "visualize Gwen's health".

This is her, holding two of the many different styles of ice cubes she can eat, sitting in her new chair, which is like a Transformer. It's a wheelchair, stroller, chair at a high or low table.

And when she's in it she's doesn't have to carry or push her big bag of TPN in her dolly stroller. On Sundays after Religious Education, she is often picked up by her moms and sister Abby. Sometimes she's picked up by her godmother Jeannemarie and her daughter Lillian, Gwens's best friend, who is a couple of years older than Gwen. Lillian takes the backpack out of the stroller, and puts in on her own back, and they walk down the hall hand in hand, central line (noodle) swinging between them. I hope this fall to get a picture of this.

TPN is Total Parenteral Nutrition - food that goes into a vein that goes straight into her heart. She recieves TPN from a big bag that's connected to a central line into her chest 17 hours a day. This is what the TPN looks like in her backpack. Because our bodies are designed to take nutrition through the GI tract and then into the blood stream, this is very hard on organs that clean the blood -- gall bladder, liver, etc.) If you've been reading along, you've seen that Gwen's gall bladder had to be removed a month ago in an attempt to fix what was making her sick that brought her to the PICU this time.

As you pray, or visualize, or whatever; pray for her liver which is very tired and cranky and behaving badly, and that her body reabsorbs the blood that was in her belly after last weeks' surgery, and that the doctors can figure out the cart and the horse in regards to this long long hospitalization.

In case you can't tell from just a picture, she's the bestest, smartest, bravest, and kindest three year old in the world.

3 comments:

But for one tiny detail. Gwen is the daughter of two of my friends, Kim and Sue, who, with their other daughter Abby, are members of my congregation. The girls are in the RE program. I should have realized that since it's been three months since I posted the longest single post in history about Gwen, her family, illness, and our Vigil, that it could look as if Gwen were my daughter.

Plus, you've changed your blogger identity, but I can't figure out who you used to be! hmmm, very curious.